BERLIN - German police are testing the use of vultures to seek out human corpses in a unique project aimed at dramatically speeding up criminal investigations. A bird expert at a wildlife park in northern Germany is training Sherlock, a five-year old turkey vulture, to locate fabric containing the scent of dead people. The scheme was commissioned by the Lower Saxony police force after a senior officer, Rainer Herrmann, watched a BBC wildlife documentary about the extraordinary sense of smell of turkey vultures, which are indigenous to the Americas. The programme showed the birds finding hidden meat with ease.
